Oct 10th 2008 5:27PM
What Happens After I Submit my Site to DMOZ?
One of the most frequently asked questions about DMOZ is what happens once a site is submitted to the directory. To help provide some insight into the review process, editor chaos127 has prepared an excellent and thorough guide to the way in which editors route and review sites.
Emily
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Website owners often complain about the time it takes for the sites they suggest to be listed in the Open Directory Project. Indeed, many often assume that their site has been rejected when it doesn't show up within a couple of weeks. Instead, it is far more likely that the site is still waiting for a volunteer editor to review it.
So why does it take so long to review suggested sites? Well, we get something in the region of 30,000 new site suggestions every week, and the number of active editors is currently just under 6,000. The process of reviewing and listing a site is not as straightforward as some people might think. First, editors need to check whether or not the site meets out site selection criteria. Then they need to ensure that the title and description follow our editing style guidelines, editing or rewriting them if necessary. Finally, the editor needs to make sure the listing is published in the most appropriate category. (And of course adding suggested sites isn't the only thing that editors need to do to build and maintain the directory - but that's something for a future post).
To help readers understand all the processed that go in to approving (or rejecting) a suggested site, we've prepared a step-by-step guide: How suggested sites are reviewed and published at the ODP. You'll see that using the correct title, providing a proper description, and suggesting your site to the right category are all likely to speed up the process of getting your site listed. It will also leave more editorial time free for reviewing everyone else's sites too.
How suggested sites are reviewed and published at the ODP
The following step-by-step guide details the typical way in which a publicly suggested site is reviewed and listed (or rejected) by editors at the Open Directory Project. For further details about site suggestions, please see: ODP Help: Submitting your site.
1. A member of the public finds a good website that isn't listing in the ODP. (There is no requirement for it to be the owner of the site who suggests it.)
2. He/she finds a suitable category and uses the "suggest URL" form to suggest it to us. A confirmation screen shows that the suggestion has been received. (No other communication from the ODP or its editors concerning the suggestion should be expected.)
3. Some manual spam filters allow repeated, multiple, automatic, and malicious submissions to be filtered out at an early stage and prevent ordinary editors having to deal with such suggestions. Only suggestions made in clear defiance of the site suggestion instructions are removed at this point.
4. A couple of days after the suggestion was made, the site suggestion appears in the unreviewed pool of the category in question. The unreviewed pool for each category is a special hidden area visible only to editors. It contains the sites suggested to that category by the public, and also any sites specifically moved there by editors.
5. Time passes until an editor with permissions in that category decides to look at the unreviewed pool and review some sites. This could take anywhere from a few minutes to a year or more. (Note that all editors are volunteers, adding new sites isn't the only editing activity, and that public suggestions aren't the only source of sites to add.)
6. An editor decides to review some sites in the category in question. The editor may or may not decide to look at the particular suggestion. Some look at sites in date order, some look for ones with titles and descriptions that already meet our guidelines for site titles and descriptions.
8. The editor now has to decide if the current category is the best one for the site, and if necessary rewrite the description to meet our site description guidelines. If the current category is suitable, then the description is rewritten and the site published. Go to #9. If not, then the site will sent to a more appropriate category. There are now several possibilities:
9. The site is now officially listed in the ODP.
Emily
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Website owners often complain about the time it takes for the sites they suggest to be listed in the Open Directory Project. Indeed, many often assume that their site has been rejected when it doesn't show up within a couple of weeks. Instead, it is far more likely that the site is still waiting for a volunteer editor to review it.
So why does it take so long to review suggested sites? Well, we get something in the region of 30,000 new site suggestions every week, and the number of active editors is currently just under 6,000. The process of reviewing and listing a site is not as straightforward as some people might think. First, editors need to check whether or not the site meets out site selection criteria. Then they need to ensure that the title and description follow our editing style guidelines, editing or rewriting them if necessary. Finally, the editor needs to make sure the listing is published in the most appropriate category. (And of course adding suggested sites isn't the only thing that editors need to do to build and maintain the directory - but that's something for a future post).
To help readers understand all the processed that go in to approving (or rejecting) a suggested site, we've prepared a step-by-step guide: How suggested sites are reviewed and published at the ODP. You'll see that using the correct title, providing a proper description, and suggesting your site to the right category are all likely to speed up the process of getting your site listed. It will also leave more editorial time free for reviewing everyone else's sites too.
How suggested sites are reviewed and published at the ODP
The following step-by-step guide details the typical way in which a publicly suggested site is reviewed and listed (or rejected) by editors at the Open Directory Project. For further details about site suggestions, please see: ODP Help: Submitting your site.
1. A member of the public finds a good website that isn't listing in the ODP. (There is no requirement for it to be the owner of the site who suggests it.)
2. He/she finds a suitable category and uses the "suggest URL" form to suggest it to us. A confirmation screen shows that the suggestion has been received. (No other communication from the ODP or its editors concerning the suggestion should be expected.)
3. Some manual spam filters allow repeated, multiple, automatic, and malicious submissions to be filtered out at an early stage and prevent ordinary editors having to deal with such suggestions. Only suggestions made in clear defiance of the site suggestion instructions are removed at this point.
4. A couple of days after the suggestion was made, the site suggestion appears in the unreviewed pool of the category in question. The unreviewed pool for each category is a special hidden area visible only to editors. It contains the sites suggested to that category by the public, and also any sites specifically moved there by editors.
5. Time passes until an editor with permissions in that category decides to look at the unreviewed pool and review some sites. This could take anywhere from a few minutes to a year or more. (Note that all editors are volunteers, adding new sites isn't the only editing activity, and that public suggestions aren't the only source of sites to add.)
6. An editor decides to review some sites in the category in question. The editor may or may not decide to look at the particular suggestion. Some look at sites in date order, some look for ones with titles and descriptions that already meet our guidelines for site titles and descriptions.
- If the site is not looked at this time, go back to #5.
- If it is, then go on to #7
- The site is found to be listable, and the editor decides they want to list it. Go to #8.
- The site is found to be listable, but the editor decides to leave it for now for some reason - perhaps the editor has something else to do in real life, or the description would need a major (time-consuming) re-write. Go to #5.
- The editor isn't sure, so decides to leave the site for now. Perhaps someone else will have a better opinion before he/she comes back to it later. Or perhaps they'll ask a more experienced editor for an opinion. Go to #5.
- The editor isn't sure, but does know that the site doesn't belong where is it now. He/she sends the site to the unreviewed pool of a more suitable category for evaluation by an editor with more experience in that area. Go to #5.
- The site isn't listable, and so is deleted.
8. The editor now has to decide if the current category is the best one for the site, and if necessary rewrite the description to meet our site description guidelines. If the current category is suitable, then the description is rewritten and the site published. Go to #9. If not, then the site will sent to a more appropriate category. There are now several possibilities:
- The editor has permissions in the destination category, and is sure the site should be listed there, and so publishes the site. Go to #9.
- The editor has permissions in the destination category, but instead sends the site to the unreviewed pool there. This could be for a variety of reasons - perhaps he/she doesn't have that much experience in that area and isn't sure exactly which category it should be listed in; or perhaps he/she doesn't want to spend time rewriting the description, and would prefer to spend their building up listings in the current category that he/she is working on. Go to #5.
- The editor doesn't have permissions in the destination category, so the site can only be sent to the unreviewed pool. Go to #5.
9. The site is now officially listed in the ODP.
- The publicly viewable pages at http://www.dmoz.org/ will update to reflect this within a couple of days (and usually much faster), but the database that the search function is based on is only updated once a week.
- It may take up to two weeks for the listing to appear in the RDF Data Dump, which is available for download and use by others under the ODP licence.
- Downstream users of the RDF Dump (e.g. the Google Directory) update their own data sets on their own schedules, over which the ODP has no control. If a site is listed in the ODP, but not showing up in data presented by downstream users, then this matter should be taken up with the downstream user in question.
21. > it's been over four years
As the result of a crash end 2006 most suggestions were lost. If you have not suggested the website in 2007 or 2008 feel free to do so again.
Posted at 3:16AM on Oct 20th 2008 by pvgool
22. @llhaesa
> disclaimer suggests submission of one's site gives
> Netscape the right to create derivatives of the listed
> work, among other things
This ofcourse means only the listing of the website in DMOZ and not the website itself.
Posted at 3:39AM on Oct 20th 2008 by pvgool
23. Still waiting for my site to be listed. Oh, but I've only waited for six months now, so I guess I'm lucky compared to other commenters here :-)
I even applied for being an editor for the (outdated) category where my site fits, but was rejected for unclear reasons.
This site is clearly very badly managed and updated, I hope this changes with the upcoming reconstruction of the site.
Posted at 11:12AM on Oct 20th 2008 by J%uFFFDnos T-E
24. "I would follow all the guidelines as an editor to the letter and sometimes a meta editor would approve it and sometimes not."
Edits do not require approval by a meta. Only if you only have Greenbuster permissions in a category do your edits need approval. But then it's still not necessarily by a meta, but rather by any editor that has full editing rights in that category.
Posted at 1:45PM on Oct 20th 2008 by ottodv
25. I submitted my site a few months ago and found that the category my site would go into hasn't been updated since May. I understand editor's have lives, but is one per week too much to ask?
Posted at 8:04PM on Oct 22nd 2008 by Dan B
26. I have submitted my online memorial site three times in the past two years and it does not ever show up on the list. But there are sites listed under "online memorials" that aren't online memorials, so what's going on? I don't get it. I'm legit. I have a great site and I can't get listed. Am I being discriminated against because I don't have a corporation behind me? Am I supposed to pay someone? It's really frustrating. I "hear" that you all get lots of submissions, etc. but if you are here be of service, at least be of service.
Posted at 12:59AM on Oct 23rd 2008 by Heather
27. Well, we all seem to have the same issue: our site is not listed after a very long period, without any feedback of dmoz. I understand the proces, I understand there is a lot of work.
I have only one polite request: please keep us up-to-date; send us at least a sign of life, keep us in the loop. We all invest in our business, pay a lot for a good marcomplan and we all want to have a good visibility on the worldwide web. And yes it is frustrating to see some websites of friends showing in dmoz that were posted a long time after your own...
Just a little bit of comprehension, a small feedback, that's all I ask.
Posted at 6:06PM on Oct 23rd 2008 by Patrick
28. I've been submitting sites to DMOZ for several years now. All straightforward business sites and they NEVER get listed, although I persist in submitting every 6 months, year after year. Category is appropriate, guidelines are followed, yet they never show up. At this point I think I would have a heart attack if a site I submitted actually showed up on DMOZ.
Posted at 8:24PM on Oct 23rd 2008 by Todd
29. @Dan B: If you look at the front page of http://www.dmoz.org/ you can see roughly how many categories there are (and there's a more accurate figure quoted at http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=52285 ). The post above here tells you the number of active editors. I'm sure you can do the maths....
@Heather: We're not here to provide a service to webmasters who want to get their site listed. We're here to provide a service to web surfers who want to find sites on different topics. To help us find such sites to list we offer a system for people to suggest sites to us, but it's not a service as such.
@Todd: If you've been suggesting the same site multiple times then you're NOT following the guidelines. If you had read the site suggestion guidelines (which you agree to follow every time you suggest a site) you'd know that you're only supposed to suggest a site once. You'd also know the potential punishment for those who ignore this instruction.
Posted at 4:23AM on Oct 24th 2008 by chaos127
30. 14. It's not only the time it takes to get listed in DMOZ (years) but the dreadful management of the current listings with dead urls, redirects and inappropriate sites. The reputation of DMOZ has sunk to an all-time low. You really don't need a listing to get highly placed in search engine results. I never use it for searches (who does?
Posted at 8:37AM on Oct 28th 2008 by das
31. @chaos127: The category I submitted to hasn't been updated since May. That editor can only update once or twice a year? I don't think it is unreasonable to expect a little bit of new updates, is it?
Posted at 8:33PM on Oct 28th 2008 by Dan B
32. Re. Comment 29: chaos127
I realise that your responses are technically accurate but they do rather miss the point.
While you say that someone who may have submitted a site once every 6 months has not followed guidelines, how reasonable is it to expect people to wait 6 months, a year or more with no notification or indication of status? That person will inevitably begin to wonder whether they have erred or whether their submission has been lost, deleted or ignored?
Submit or not to submit that is the question...
Above, we are told "As the result of a crash end 2006 most suggestions were lost." but until now, how is one to have known this? According to your rigorous interpretation of the rules, a site may have been submitted in 2003 and yet now, 5 yrs later, it is not permitted to submit it again? Unless, of course, we 'happen' to know that previous submissions were lost somehow.
The explanation posted by Emily Kayser gives a great insight into the operation of DMOZ and the difficulties therein however, I'm afraid your post conveys more the impression of hiding behind the rules to the inevitable cost of public goodwill.
Over four years, our site has grown from a small forum to what public opinion has determined to be one of the most valuable resources to snow sports enthusiasts in Europe and the US. Yet we are not listed in DMOZ. I think that fact detracts more from DMOZ's value than from the value of snowHeads.
Our most appropriate category "Top: Sports: Winter Sports" hasn't been updated in years! I have however, seen sites of similar though spammier subject matter, become listed in certain less suitable sub categories - now I want to play by the rules, I want snowHeads listed in its proper category but no-one maintains those - ever! So is this what it comes to? Submit to the 'right' category and be ignored indefinitely or 'break the rules' and submit to a 'slightly wrong' one and be listed. That doesn't say much for the way DMOZ is being managed IMO.
Sorry to moan but so many people have been repeating the same complaints for so long now - there's just no point in you telling the whole world that they are all doing it subtly, technically or terribly wrong. I'm afraid the inalienable truth is that DMOZ needs a subtle change in approach if it is to regain the widespread affection and respect it once had.
Posted at 11:14PM on Oct 28th 2008 by Graham
33. DMOZ states that its 'reason for being' is to provide a service to web surfers, not webmasters. However, as a web surfer, I want to see new sites in search results, not the same old sites all the time. I don't want to see sites that are total rubbish, but DMOZ are, in effect, censoring the web by applying review criteria, such as grammatical accuracy, which not everybody is too worried about. The other barrier to listing new sites is the lack of volunteer editors - it seems to me that it would be better for DMOZ to abandon the directory and force the big search engines to pay for full-time human editors. Even if there was still a substantial delay, I think that they would at least let webmasters have some communication - even if it's just standard output, as described in the other blog entries. They also already have the technology to do a 'first sieve' of sites, to determine the level of text content, so that high-content sites could get priority reviewing.
Posted at 7:22PM on Oct 29th 2008 by Barbara Holland
34. cool
Posted at 8:02PM on Nov 1st 2008 by Johannes
35. I understand the problems associated with maintaining a large human edited directory with volunteers but it seems that if you are truely trying to be the webs most comprehensive directory and providing web surfers with relevent quality sites then it would seem to me that you would want to actually list new sites. My experience has been that you accept submissions but could care less about actually listing sites or maintaining your catagories. I have a website that I've tried to list following your guidelines but have yet to see it listed after more than 2 yrs. while there are sites listed in my catagory that no longer exist or that link to sites that are redirects to sites with pages of links on them only. What's up with that??????
Posted at 11:13PM on Nov 1st 2008 by Walter
36. Right category and submission guidelines would not always work.
I am not writing this a bit peevish post because I was disappointed, but to be frank, normally its not always the category and the submission guidelines, great PR, good domain age, quality in-links, a decent appropriate description, related page titles and keywords, and a good leading brand name, that works, when a directory or a specific category is being edited by a competitor or someone is normally busy in real life.
In my last 8 years experience whilst I was a student I kept on going through checking different categories, I still do, not to point out the faulty aspects (This is the first time I guess), but to learn more, but in fact I have experienced the Spam websites listed in the Dmoz! Categories, even the websites that have been penalized in the search engine’s especially in Google. Why? Lets re-say the specific category editor was busy in his/her real life like before? Did he come back? Was he/she packed with the new submissions that he/she had no time to have a look at the edited things (before)? Why those sites are still listed does not really exist now? The editor was busy in life…. J
Just last night, while studying some categories, I have found, the title, the specific keywords and descriptions assigned to a specific website, not appropriate and related to the website…why? Lets say the editor and the website owner are friends? So the relationships still work in Dmoz? Bob…are you there?
It is very sad when we talk about less editors… When the seniors have been working fine…why there was a need to let them go? I still see many ex-editors complaining about the bad incidents happened to them whilst they were working at the ODP… They were removed because they were positive and just allowing those following the guidelines…and not helping the senior editors friends and family continually abusing Dmoz with their Spam and excessive submissions… How much quota is assigned to every editor (for their friends & family) to list the sites does not meet the submission rules and guidelines?
Posted at 8:52AM on Nov 7th 2008 by Tina
37. I'd like to join the others in asking for feedback on the status...
You say that sometimes a site will get to the point that it is listable but needs the description rewriting which for whatever reason the editor doesn't want to do and so puts it back in the list - why not email the person who suggested the url and ask them to consider rewriting the description again possibly even hinting at whats wrong with their hopefully already carefully crafted description...
Posted at 8:23AM on Nov 12th 2008 by Dave Marks
38. ohh ic. thats why dmoz take a long time to review my site because in here wasnt machine to review it, i understand for it, but i was take step by step to add my site in here, hope can be listed like other site...
afterall thanks for this information, it was answer my all question in my head before.
thanks
Posted at 4:19PM on Nov 13th 2008 by sasidesign
39. I have bee trying to get listed for 2.5 years - Is there any chance of getting my website listed or at least an explanation why
Posted at 5:35AM on Nov 20th 2008 by Paul Mullan
40. "What Good Is a Website for My Local Business?" Because When Eager Buyers Use Search Engines and Find Your Business Website (Targeted Local Traffic), You'll Be Making More Money!
Posted at 10:28PM on Nov 24th 2008 by JamesTyler